L A C R I M O Z A R T I A N E S Q U E

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

[duration 19:32] all rights reserved

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The artist Otacílio Melgaço has two official curators in the virtual world. A curator (from Latin: ´curare´, meaning ´to take care´) is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, keeper of a cultural heritage institution (e.g., gallery, museum, library or, as the present case: sound archive) is a content specialist charged with an institution's collections and, highlighting the context in force here, involved with the interpretation of personal (heritage) material. Both, Mr. Paz and Mr. Campbell, are, therefore, reviewers of the Melgacian works. To learn more about their missions, tasks, assignments and responsibilities by means of valuable informations regarding the compositional process, the performative rhizomes and other special features, just click the following link: otaciliomelgaco.wixsite.com/preamblebypsp
(O.M.Team; P r e l u d e)

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"Lacrimosa dies illa,

qua resurget ex favilla judicandus homo reus.

Huic ergo parce, Deus, pie Jesu Domine,

dona eis requiem.

Amen.

(Full of tears will be that day
When from the ashes shall arise
The guilty man to be judged;
Therefore spare him, O God,
Merciful Lord Jesus,
Grant them eternal rest.
Amen.)

The Lacrimosa (Latin for ´weeping/tearful´), also a name that derives from Our Lady of Sorrows, a title given to The Virgin Mary, is part of the Dies Irae sequence in the Requiem Mass. Its text comes from the 18th and 19th stanzas of the sequence. Many composers, including Mozart (and Berlioz, and Verdi...) have set the text as a discrete movement of the Requiem.

Here we are faced with Otacílian Variations on this Theme of Wolfgang Amadeus. As expected, quite peculiar and surprising. Look at the cover of this album [which, by the way, suggests the letter M - by Melgaço and yet Mozart -]. A Phoenix. The allegorical bird, said to be the only one of its kind, which lives for 500 years and then dies by burning to embers on a pyre of its own making, ignited by the sun. Then it arises anew from the ashes... It is seems to me to be the key to such phenomenal sonic Oeuvre! If we look at ´When from the ashes shall arise´, each of us will discover the link with the original Latin (under the Christian cloak) and, also under the enigmatic auspices of O.M., with, a step [or would it be a flapping of wings?] forward, the mythologized meaning-in-Resurrection of LACRIMOZARTIANESQUE." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

"I n t r o d u c t i o n

The Requiem in D minor, K. 626, is a Requiem Mass by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791). Mozart composed part of the Requiem in Vienna in late 1791, but it was unfinished at his death on 5 December the same year. A completed version dated 1792 by Franz Xaver Süssmayr was delivered to Count Franz von Walsegg, who had commissioned the piece for a requiem service on 14 February 1792 to commemorate the first anniversary of the death of his wife Anna at the age of 20 on 14 February 1791.

The autograph manuscript shows the finished and orchestrated Introit in Mozart's hand, and detailed drafts of the Kyrie and the sequence Dies irae as far as the first eight bars of the L-a-c-r-y-m-o-s-a movement, and the Offertory. It cannot be shown to what extent Süssmayr may have depended on now lost ´scraps of paper´ for the remainder; he later claimed the Sanctus and Benedictus and the Agnus Dei as his own.

Walsegg probably intended to pass the Requiem off as his own composition, as he is known to have done with other works. This plan was frustrated by a public benefit performance for Mozart's widow Constanze. She was responsible for a number of stories surrounding the composition of the work, including the claims that Mozart received the commission from a mysterious messenger who did not reveal the commissioner's identity, and that Mozart came to believe that he was writing the Requiem for his own funeral.

In addition to the Süssmayr version, a number of alternative completions have been developed by composers and musicologists in the 20th and 21st centuries.

T h r e e
o r
F o u r
R h i z o m e s
s i n c e LACRIMOZARTIANESQUE

- About The Words ´Lacrimosa´ & ´Lacrymosa´ -

I've heard several versions about possible origins of both and whether both could be considered correct or just one of them. I will, without adornment, embrace one of the explanations I found, that of Sabrina Filange.

<<´Lacrimosa´ is a Latin word that means ´weeping´ or ´tearful´. The ´Lacrimosa´ is often a mournful and sorrowful passage, reflecting the sadness and grief associated with death and loss. ´Lacrymosa´ [Note from me: already with a Greek inflection], on the other hand, is a variation, with the same root word ´lacrima´ meaning ´tear´. However, ´Lacrymosa´ has a slightly different connotation, as it is more associated with weeping or lamentation rather than sorrow or mourning. In terms of mood, both ´Lacrimosa´ and ´Lacrymosa´ are generally somber and melancholic. However, ´Lacrimosa´ may be considered slightly more mournful and sorrowful, while ´Lacrymosa´ may have a more poignant and emotional quality to it, with a sense of longing or yearning.>>

[An addendum: It is inevitable to point out the crucial curiosity that Otacílio Melgaço presents us with a third one: ´Lacrimoza(rt)´].

- About The Various Adoptions Of Designations By O.M. -

Directly to the Melgacian ´Mirror House´:

1 - In the CLASSICALEFACTORY Series​​​​​​​, Otacílio had already used LACRIMOSA as the heading.

melgacootacilio.bandcamp.com/album/lacrimosa-otac-lio-melga-o-classicalefactory-series-mozart-duration-25-26

Nevertheless, what is heard, interweaving references and hypertextualities, are Variations on Mozart's Don Giovanni / Il Commendatore;

2 - The title of these new reCreations [now sonically based on LACRIMOSA indeed] is a pun on the term itself + composer's surname + the suffixes -ian (related to, belonging to) & -esque (denoting something that is reminiscent of, or a style, character);

3 - Melgaço puts his - kaleidoscopic polysemic - wings out once again because the name of the Album is LACRIMOZARTIANESQUE but of the Piece/Track is LACRYMOZARTIANESQUE. This is the time to, in culmination, re-read the enlightening version chosen [a little above] that unveils such supposed dichotomy, Ladies and Gentlemen. In reality, here, a counterpoint, a splendiferous complementarity-in-progress(ion).

- About The Sound Design Itself -

"One must not make oneself cheap here - that is a cardinal point - or else one is done. Whoever is most impertinent has the best chance." (W. A. M.)

Lacrimosa dies illa,

qua resurget ex favilla judicandus homo reus.

Huic ergo parce, Deus, pie Jesu Domine,

dona eis requiem.

Amen

from the glimpses of Melgaço, it is incensed to us like a prayer to be repeated, a litany. Could the voice (which unfolds into several) still be considered human or in a state of true trance? Maybe even futuristic, hybrid? Sometimes subtle noises that resemble sci-fi interventions resound. Could it be configured that there be two projectional passages (a little after the first few minutes, a little before the last ones) when

the free jazzy drums
and
the double basses in an almost magmatic unison

would reveal themselves as luminous points of impertinence? Echoing Mozart's quote, these are the rich chances that Otacílio proposes for us to absorb the contemporization of conceptions that cross historical - and transcendent - times & spaces. When a movement of a Requiem (be it a liturgical ritual or a composition that is capable of existing by itself and in itself) gains this level of iconoclasm, we realize that art should not and cannot ever have stifled or muted its evolutionary vocation. It is worth saying that Melgacian iconoclasm is not a barbaric act of dismantling for the sake of dismantlement, as a truculent and empty mode of denying the bygone. No. In effect, this is a form of expression that simultaneously recognizes the ballasts of the past, which are part of an affirmative anthropophagy [among other instruments, the sacramental vultus of the organ that O.M. plays throughout much of the duration of such Opus, is masterful proof of], and then catapulted to present and later instances, as much a reflection of the synchrony of an artist with his spacetime as bottles carrying messages released to the prospective unknown and even the anticipation (or making) of the unknown.

Another aspect that I draw your attention to is the peculiar relationship that Otacílio has with Tempo. Generally performances of the Mozartian Lacrymosa range from 3:15 to, at most, 4:55, something around that. Here we have almost 20 minutes! Not because of the extension itself but in terms of how he ´alchemizes´ it! Much has already been written about it and the critical fortune of O.M. it is also vast in this sense. ´The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at
once´, once Albert Einstein uttered. Perchance Otacílio contradicts this, and gives us all the time to feel and ubiquitously metabolize it. Put it differently, in the Melgacian sonorous Offspring, it is not the past, the present and the future that happen, it's you and me and all of us that are happening!

One more significant merit of Otacílio is the sound engineering. Denying a pasteurization that infests the ´music industry´ (mainly from the 1980s), for each new connotation that a creation demands, in theme or scenario or context or... in mental, emotional, ´spiritual´ state or... yet in abstractionism, intuition, unpredictability, etc., he alters the textures of sonic recordings to the point of reintroducing us to all the interpretative possibilities that organicity acoustics and electronics can offer us. Those who are accustomed to the imposed conventions of what would be the stereotype of a ´well-recorded´ (sic) album often become victims of a paradigmatic comfort zone that labels and standardizes plus trivializes a more curious, restless, demanding and expansive listening experience. What does Melgaço seeks and puts into practice is the breadth of this ingenious audible treatment at the service of the entire panorama (micro and macrocosmic) required by each composition. Voices that are praying inside a cathedral are very different from those that, surreally (or lacrymozartianesquelly?), are found in a cubicular claustrophobic post-orbital capsule. Why do I bring such visionary example? It is one of the hypotheses that encircles this Work. I will briefly divagate about. All this to further understand the spread of O.M.’s art.

There is, supposedly and subtly, an idiosyncratic sidereal atmosphere that could correspond to the horizon of a Requiem dedicated to... the planet Earth, or better said, to... the Mankind. Let’s imagine the following synergy: the increasing risk of new devastating pandemics, growing trends towards authoritarian (and belligerent) governments, wars (including nuclear threats), extremist-religious conflicts always capable of escalating, alarming ecological imbalances (with the consequences, for instance, of rising sea levels and coastal cities being able to disappear because of this), doubts about the direction that high technology will take (suffice it to allude to the changeabilities regarding the hereafter of Artificial Intelligence, Deepfake, Big Data...) and so on. Would the locution for all this added together be an inflexible Point of No Return? Therefore, maintaining my speculation and from the nothing implausible point of view that figuratively Otacílio might be giving us, a suitable hearable itinerary would be, in a projection of what could be to come, that of our outerspatial distancing from a global focus that, at this rate, is already extinct - for all the reasons I mentioned plus many other possible ones, since in some situations, such as a total atomic hecatomb, not only populations but certain celestial body moving in an elliptical circuit around the sun would simply evanesce - and this, in a real parameter, of those who, self-expelled from hitherto our Sphere, managed to escape from being swallowed by vanishing.

The relationship between a Requiem, a ceremonial vocalic Invocation, the expectation of a (most radical and apotheotic) ´neo-Renaissance´, all of this becomes much more concrete through the clews that Melgaço offers us, not - as many would do - by obvious mechanisms but, which is fabulous, through symbolic sound traces! Of course, we are in a parabolic field and, if this conjecture can be taken into account, it would be an abysmal opprobrium by O.M. to all the frightening scourges that affect us, generally caused by all of us, by the human race itself. Mozart came to believe that he was writing the Requiem for his own funeral. This always touched Melgaço's soul deeply.

And when it's not about a person but a World, an entire Environment? Or whoever occupies it, so often like a parasite. The annihilation of that one, the annihilation of this one. Is the resurgence (explicitly hinted at through such composition and everything that surrounds it) approached as a warning, an admonition or as the solely suitable outlet for the complexion that the anthropoid existence has assumed? Is there something cybernetic in the orison that opens LACRIMOZARTIANESQUE and thus could it be a clue to another form of eradication of what we would conceive as ´fully human´? If we humans are liable to perpetrating an overall catastrophe, peradventure the chance to avoid this or even for some to be saved from an ultimate cataclysm would be through, in supposed evolution, them becoming cyborgs (a living beings whose powers are enhanced by computer implants or mechanical body parts)? Or even beyond that. Is what I have just conjectured a sheer delirium or, in one way or another (have you ever heard about Biohacking, Neuralink...?), are we already on that path?

Resuming the thread: We could only complete such an Oeuvre (a Requiem in honor of our, in projection, defunct earthly home) if we, evidently, escaped from or transcended, strictly speaking, a terrestrial death. An exile? Allegorically, an irreversible stellar diaspora? [Really an allegory? Does this seem very unrealistic given some of the intentions of suspicious & toxic figures like Elon Musk and his corporation that (with missions to the Moon and, next pace, Mars) outlines, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft?]. Or Otacílio is referring to, still here (avoiding the endmost disaster) or not anymore: a transfiguration, a transubstantiation? Like a Phoenix, reborn, towards new and possible survivals? In current Melgacian ringing Spawn, wouldn't this be the nexus of the extrapolative content of the instruments (yet considering the paroxysmal timpani) in terms of timbre and ethereal language? Wouldn’t that be the climactic vibrations of those initial voxes? Which, alias, represent the substantiality of those who keep-body-and-soul-together and wave to the prospective; it is not just any detail that Melgaço points to women's vocalizations, it is archetypally the Feminine, for him, that encompass topicality (in the mortuary solemnity) and oncoming (the same star at the center of the Solar System around which there would no longer be the mundane Realm, is what lights the pyre that will culminate in the embers that will give rise to the Firebird...parkling from the cinders exultantly).

Wouldn’t that be the surrounding insinuations of those introductory voxes? Voices that are praying inside a cathedral are very distinct from those that, surreally (or lacrymozartianesquelly?), are found in a cubicular claustrophobic post-orbital capsule, still with a little (emblematic) echo. [Thereat I renew my laudation of O.M. as a sound designer and equally an engineer:] What was once spaciousness and reverberation now, to the sense of hearing, has less brilliance and effulgence [the two materializations of the drums, contrasting with what I have just described, are an attractive paradox and a purposeful another dimension given to the light], but precisely for this reason, completely remodeling the entire physical (and metaphysical) character of that Background. Observing this, respecting this, giving life to, ...this is what we will always find in Melgaço's Works even if our ears have to go through such Rite of Passage. In fact, both metaphorically and empirically, nothing is more necessary, in my understanding, than this...if we think about the uninterrupted physiology of the current Orb.

LACRIMOZARTIANESQUE. The wise quote is attributed to Wolfgang Amadeus: “The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.” Otacílio Melgaço, once again, invites us to listen better and better to everything that is b-e-t-W-E-e-n us." (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

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I - From Mozart's Lacrymosa

The chords begin piano on a rocking rhythm in 12/8, intercut with quarter rests, which will be reprised by the choir after two measures, on Lacrimosa dies illa ("This tearful day"). Then, after two measures, the sopranos begin a diatonic progression, in disjointed eighth-notes on the text resurget ("will be reborn"), then legato and chromatic on a powerful crescendo. The choir is forte by m. 8, at which point Mozart's contribution to the movement is interrupted by his death.

Süssmayr brings the choir to a reference of the Introit and ends on an Amen cadence. Discovery of a fragmentary Amen fugue in Mozart's hand has led to speculation that it may have been intended for the Requiem. Indeed, many modern completions (such as Levin's) complete Mozart's fragment. Some sections of this movement are quoted in the Requiem Mass of Franz von Suppé, who was a great admirer of Mozart. Ray Robinson, the music scholar and president (from 1969 to 1987) of the Westminster Choir College, suggests that Süssmayr used materials from Credo of one of Mozart's earlier Masses, Mass in C major, K. 220 "Sparrow" in completing this movement;

II - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition resulted in more than 800 works of virtually every Western classical genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral repertoire. Mozart is widely regarded as among the greatest composers in the history of Western music, with his music admired for its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture".

Born in Salzburg, then in the Holy Roman Empire and currently in Austria, Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. His father took him on a grand tour of Europe and then three trips to Italy. At 17, he was a musician at the Salzburg court but grew restless and travelled in search of a better position.

While visiting Vienna in 1781, Mozart was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He stayed in Vienna, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During his final years there, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas. His Requiem was largely unfinished by the time of his death at the age of 35, the circumstances of which are uncertain and much mythologised.

...for purposes of pragmatism and clear exegesis,
quotes have Wikipedia as a source...

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Between two parentheses...
(Atonalism, Twelve-Tone, Serialism, Musique Concrète... Acousmatic. Eletroacoustic. Magnetic Tape. Expressionism, New Objectivity, Hyperrealism, Abstractionism, Neoclassicism, Neobarbarism, Futurism, Mythic Method. Electronic...Computer Music, Spectral, Polystylism, Neoromanticism, Minimalism and Post-Minimalism...are addressed by Melgaço. Paradoxically New Simplicity and New Complexity also.
Art Rock, Free Jazz, Ethnic Dialects, Street Sounds are occasional syntax elements.
All the possibilities mentioned above and others that were not mentioned are the usual accoutrements of the composer/instrumentalist to establish his ´babelic´ glossary. We can prove this in a short passage of a single composition up along the entirety of a conceptual phonograph album. All distributed over a career and idiosyncratic records. Have we a universe before us and I propose to see it through a telescope, not a microscope.
I propose not handle very specialized topics here. Otherwise would be, with the exception of musicians and scholars, all hostages of a hermetic jargon. Because more important is to present Otacílio Melgaço to the general public and not to a segment of specialists. Faction of experts not need presentations, depart for the enjoyment beforehand. For this reason there is no niche here for intellectual onanism and encrypted musical terminology. The reason for these parentheses is to establish such elucidation. The non-adoption of technicalities leads to more panoramic, amplifier reviews. Are You always welcome. Those who do not dominate contemporary music and are introduced to the world of ubiquitous O.M. [autodidact and independent artist who, being more specific, does not belong to schools or doctrines; artist who makes Music and that´s enough; music devoid of labels or stylistic, chronological, historical paradigms or trends] and Those who belong to the métier and turn to enjoy propositions they know and also delving into advanced Melgacian sound cosmogonies...
I conclude poetically. ´Certeza/Certainty´ by Octavio Paz. ´Si es real la luz blanca De esta lámpara, real La mano que escribe, ¿son reales
Los ojos que miran lo escrito? De una palabra a la otra Lo que digo se desvanece. Yo sé que estoy vivo Entre dos paréntesis.´ If it is real the white light from this lamp, real the writing hand, are they real, the eyes looking at what I write? From one word to the other what I say vanishes. I know that I am alive between two parentheses.
We´re all more and more a-l-i-v-e now.)
- P.S.P.